Year: 1964
Type: article
Abstract: THE 1944 EDUCATION ACT gave the first legal definition of' Secondary Education', though in effect the definition was a residual after the field of further education had been delineated.'Further Education' was treated in a descriptive manner, and no attempt was made to differentiate technical education.1 In the empirical atmosphere of English education exact definition has been distrusted, but it is worth examining those definitions that have been made as they should provide some indications of what contemporary opinion saw as the function of the part of the educational system in question.It should, perhaps, be added that, though changes in opinion can be traced in this way, the factors operating to bring about the changes are not discovered.In the 1860's according to The Economist 'the notion of technical education' was' almost entirely new to the country'.2It is true that before this date there had been the Mechanics' Institutes whose aim had been to teach' useful knowledge', but they had failed in their purpose primarily due to the lack of literacy amongst those who needed such knowledge.The Economist thought that there was a need to arrive at some definite conclusion as to the form technical education should assume in Britain, but was adamant that the workshops and offices of the country were 'its true technical schools'.These comments were prompted by the appointment in 1867 of the Select Committee on Scientific Instruction with Sir Bernhard Samuelson, the ironmaster, as chairman.The main outcome of this Committee was the appointment of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science (1870-5) with the Duke of Devonshire as chairman.The Economist article showed that practical instruction was to be excluded from technical education.The titles of the two government inquiries indicated quite clearly that it was in theoretical instruction that people sought an answer to the cry for technical education.At this time scientific instruction was almost synonymous with theoretical
Author: P.W. Musgrave
Institution: University of Cambridge
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2089130087